


Guided Home

by stardropdream (orphan_account)



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Implied Torture, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-04
Updated: 2013-02-04
Packaged: 2017-11-28 05:51:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/671011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>WWII is over, but the world is still in chaos, falling apart and painful. In these unsure times, a war-torn Greece visits Japan in his war-torn home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guided Home

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ August 2, 2009. 
> 
> This fic deals with sensitive subjects, and is not meant to offend or insult anyone who may read it. The opinions in this piece are those of the characters and not necessarily reflect those of the author. 
> 
> This fic can be read as a companion piece to "Another Place to Fall" - but it is not necessary to read that story to read this one.

The wind shifted the chimes hanging from the beams.   
  
_Clink. Clink. Clink._   
  
He inhaled slowly, pale, bandaged hands fisted in the light folds of his kimono, sitting with his legs tucked beneath him on the veranda. The garden had started to grow back now, tentatively. He missed the sunflowers the most, most days, when the rainy season waned into the heat of summer. The flowers and plants that grew were weak, already wilting under the strength of the sun. They were thin, stretched.   
  
“Nothing can be done about it,” he murmured to himself, eyes lidded, his voice laced with resignation and bitterness.   
  
He heard a dull thud, a painful pang of uneven footsteps moving across the veranda, off to the side of his face covered by thick bandages, blocking out a blackened eye and burned flesh. He looked up, had to turn his head almost completely to the side, to see out of his only good eye.   
  
There was a man there he hadn’t seen in a while, body nearly as beaten as his own. He leaned heavily on his cross, using it as a support, feet shuffling along the wooden planks outside Japan’s home. He looked worse from the last time he’d seen him, body pale, bruised, and bandaged, much like his own. Poorly clotted, day-old wounds crossed over the exposed skin.   
  
“I’m sorry for the intrusion,” Greece said in greeting once he was close enough to speak comfortably.   
  
Japan looked up at him, and their eyes locked. The wind shifted the chimes in the beams, and Japan tried to find words. He opened his mouth, only to shut it, then turned back towards his garden when he failed to locate the proper words.   
  
He heard Greece set his cross against the ground, slowly sinking down to sit beside him. He heard his body groan, the tensing and flexing of muscles weakened and shaking.   
  
They sat in silence. The wind chimes shivered.  
  
 _Clink. Clink. Clink._   
  
“I would offer you some food,” Japan stated after a prolonged silence, “But I’m afraid that I’m…”  
  
“I know,” Greece interrupted, sparing Japan from admitting the shameful truth of his people’s starvation and homelessness. The taller man continued, “America has told me of your troubles.”   
  
Japan’s eyes narrowed, and he watched the wind waver the grass at the base of the stairs leading off the veranda.   
  
“Has he.” It wasn’t really a question.   
  
But Greece answered anyway, “He is involved in my country as well.”  
  
“Yes,” Japan agreed, the bite in his voice seeping away, “helping with your war, is it?”   
  
“Hm,” Greece hummed in agreement, and swiped his hand against his own cheek idly, checking to make sure none of the wounds on his face were splitting open. “Just when I thought my country was done being torn apart. Even if those who occupied me before are gone, it seems now my people are looking to tear themselves apart.” He sighed. “So this is the modern era.”   
  
Japan looked over at him again, studied the lines of red cuts and slices and bullet holes sloppily stitched back together, scarring the skin. “These wounds, then…”  
  
“The scars are thanks to Germany and Italy,” Greece said, with the kind of apathy that sounded more forced than natural, coolly practiced and delivered as if he was discussing the weather. “The new wounds are my own doing.”   
  
“I see,” Japan whispered, and looked down at his bandaged hands, fingers, knuckles. He recalled times of his own inner strife, when different feudal lords fought over him, and the scars slashed over his back were testament to that past. He tried to keep his voice even, “So you are here to see America?”  
  
“Yes,” Greece said, then conceded rather bluntly, “But I also wanted to see you.”  
  
“Oh…” Japan trailed off, unsure how to respond to such a statement.   
  
He could feel Greece’s gaze, and felt his face flush with shame. He stared stubbornly out at the garden, past the fence to the world beyond, to distant cities and flattened landscape.   
  
“I guess it’d be foolish for me to ask how you are,” Greece offered, and perhaps it was only his imagination that Japan sensed hesitancy in that voice. When he turned his head, Greece looked as neutral as always, eyes soft and mouth lax. He was studying the bandages on his own arms, mirroring Japan’s own wrappings.   
  
“I thank you despite that,” Japan muttered, and clenched his eyes shut.   
  
Greece hummed again, in time to the _Clink Clink Clink_ of the bells above their heads.   
  
Japan offered, tentatively, but decisively, “I know now, what it’s like to be held at the mercy of others.”   
  
“… Ah,” Greece said gently, one who’d known that feeling as well and fought against it, “It’s a lesson we all learn at one point, I suppose. It’s the nature of this world, of the nations and humanity. Eventually, all things must end. Even so, the way you learned… I would not wish that on anyone.”   
  
The clouds in the sky shifted, stretched, and drifted away. Both men watched the transformation. No more words passed between them, as the distant echo of Greece’s voice faded away into inadequacy. There were no words to say. Japan knew that, as did his companion. They sat in silence.   
  
_Clink. Clink. Clink._   
  
Greece sighed, shifted and rested his hands against the ground, leaning back and stretching out his legs until the feet hung over the side of the veranda. Japan watched the toes curl and point, watched Greece roll his ankles absently, trying to work out the kinks and slow, steady settlement of pain and tense muscles. They had fought for so long.   
  
Japan looked away, eyes narrowing as he studied his bandaged, broken body.   
  
“I was powerful,” he said suddenly, unsure where the sudden desire to speak had come from, “For years I was told of my unbridled strength and valor. And suddenly it was all over in minutes and I—!” He abruptly cut himself off, fists clenching almost painfully, twisting into the fabric covering his thighs. His burns, his wounds, screamed at him beneath the white bandages, beneath the fabric of his kimono. He released a long breath, coming out no more than a hissed whisper, “But nothing can be done about it.”   
  
Greece didn’t move for a moment. He didn’t move to touch the broken body beside him, unable to pinpoint an uninjured part of that man’s body. Instead, he stared out at the strained garden, olive eyes sympathetic and knowing that Japan didn’t want the sympathy.   
  
So he sat until Japan eventually righted himself, sitting up straight and looking straight ahead.  
  
“America has seen to it that I never have a military again,” he said and the deep sigh in his voice shielded any indication of how he felt about it. “My people are hurt, dying, starving. Many of them are leaving my shore, to seek a life elsewhere.” He paused, looked at the sky for a moment and found he could not blame his people for fleeing from him, no matter how painful it felt. He closed his eyes. “And I am tired.”   
  
“Ah,” said Greece, and somehow that was enough. Somehow, Japan heard exactly what Greece was saying in that single syllable. He clenched his closed eyes, trying to banish any semblance of light that could filter in, felt the hot flash of tears collecting behind his eyes and felt a similar hot shame bubbling in his throat. So this is what he’d become.   
  
“I was told for so long that I was unstoppable, that I was the strongest there was. Now, here I am.” He swallowed his tears, and choked on his rage.   
  
“What will you do?” the voice asking the question was soft, but the words hit him like an angry slap to the face.   
  
Japan found he didn’t have an answer. He contemplated the shapes of the clouds in the stretched sky before worrying his lower lip. Then, he said, “I’ll collect the pieces.”   
  
He shifted, looking over at Greece and locking eyes with him. He did not look away, did not waver.   
  
“That’s all I have now.”   
  
The wan smile Greece gave him was both heartbreaking and reassuring. Japan gripped his knees, leaned forward slightly, to try to explain to Greece, to try to make him see what it was and where they were and how it all had to be. But he was tired. And there was nothing that could be done. Never anything.   
  
“My sun has set.”  
  
“Sunsets are inevitable,” Greece said lightly. “All things must end, the day must always move towards night. But night melts away to sunrise.”   
  
“My sun was never meant to set.”  
  
“Even we cannot control the sun.” Greece looked up at the sky, squinted towards the said star, shining in the sky and bathing the world below it in a warm light. “This world is too old, we are too old. Eventually, all things must end.”   
  
_Clink. Clink. Clink._   
  
“Heh,” Japan chuckled, without amusement. It sounded hollow and broken, even to his own ears. “I suppose I really was foolish to think that I could defy such a reality.”   
  
“Everything moves.”  
  
Japan flexed his fingers, watched them curl and the bandages tense and relax over his skin. “I understand that now.”   
  
“Ah.”  
  
They sat in silence.   
  
“And… what of you?” Japan asked, feeling that he’d gathered too much attention, and he hated the shame still stewing in the pit of his stomach. He’d spent too long drowning in his own reality, and ran from it. He kept his eyes away from his garden, away from the sky, and instead focused on his companion. He worried what the answer would be, but he did not pull away from Greece.   
  
Sure enough, the smile Greece gave him was once again a rather bleak smile, and heartbroken.   
  
“I will fight for my people. I have grown used to fighting,” he said, still smiling, eyes gentle despite the pain that lingered there. “But… It’s hard to fight for your people when you are fighting _against_ your people.”   
  
Japan wanted to reach out to touch him, to reassure him. And he wasn’t sure where that thought came from, or why he entertained it for longer than a moment. He clenched his hands into fists, felt his knuckles flex and quick jabs of pain shoot up his arms at the harsh treatment of his pained body.   
  
“In the end, this will go nowhere,” Greece whispered. “All this fighting. There are more important things we could be focusing on, and yet this is how we occupy our days.” He closed his eyes. “I tire of such things, though I know in my heart that this is how it’ll be until the end. It’s hard to take, sometimes.”  
  
“Yes,” Japan murmured to his clenched hands, and inhaled a shaky, hesitant breath. “I realize that now.”   
  
Greece said nothing, so Japan continued.  
  
“Perhaps I was foolish. Perhaps I got ahead of myself, but I…” he felt the bubbles of shame rolling in his stomach, churning and pushing against his insides until he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, for a long moment. “I’ve done horrible, unspeakable things.”   
  
“We all have,” Greece offered.  
  
“You… not you. You fought so hard during the war. You didn’t…”   
  
“I could not protect my people as I should have been able to,” Greece interrupted gently, lifting a hand and waving it in a half-distracted manner. Japan studied the scars slashed across his exposed skin, traced the bandages running up and down his arms, over his feet, around his neck, ever tightening like a noose.   
  
“In comparison to what others have done…”  
  
“There is no sense comparing. If one person has done something terrible, that does not diminish what terrible things others have done. If not in this war, then in wars to come or wars of the past.” He leveled Japan with an even, almost reassuring look. “None of us are innocent.”   
  
“But…”  
  
“You and your allies did…” he hesitated, collected the right words, “are responsible for many terrible things.” He ignored Japan’s small flinch. “But those you fought against… they are not without guilt as well.” He shifted closer and Japan did not pull away. “Your wounds can speak for as much.”  
  
Japan’s eyes narrowed and he shifted, sitting up a bit straighter and glaring out towards the sky.  
  
 _Clink. Clink. Clink._   
  
“A weapon like that… it should never have existed in the first place,” Japan hissed. “And it’s disgusting that out there, there are—it should never exist.”  
  
Greece said nothing, staring out into the garden, his face grim. “So don’t let it.”  
  
“Nothing can be done about it. I am powerless now, and all those out there foolish rushing to acquire that kind of power.” This time, Japan did shiver. “Nothing good can come of something like that.”   
  
“The lack of military power does not mean that a nation is without any power,” Greece reprimanded. He gave Japan a shallow smile. “It will take more than that for you to be erased from this world, my friend.”   
  
Japan leveled him with a calculating look, looking at him sidelong and feeling the same curlings of shame in the pit of his stomach, pounding against the inside of his chest and clenching his heart. His burnt flesh, his dressed wounds, screamed in sympathy and in hatred, and he was in pain.   
  
“You’re right.”   
  
Greece smiled at him and looked away again, looking up at the chiming bells lining Japan’s house. He closed his eyes and sighed, face growing lax and wan, tired and broken and struggling.   
  
“This is not the end of me,” Japan murmured. Jaded. Angry. But not done, never erased.   
  
When he looked back to Greece, the man was looking at him again, face hinting at a smile and eyes soft, reassuring. Japan marveled at such empathy, despite the man’s own dire situation.  
  
“You, as well.” Japan suddenly felt rather awkward. He was still unused to saying things like this, so blatantly and directly. “You’ll make it through this darkness.”  
  
Greece laughed, without mirth and without cruelty.   
  
“That…”   
  
“It’s fine,” Greece reassured. “In this modern era, it isn’t as it once was. I will go where my people take me. But as the years progress, I wonder… where is it that we are all striving for? What awaits us in the future?” He closed his eyes. “It will not be as it was.”   
  
“It never is.”  
  
“No,” Greece agreed.   
  
“I’m growing old,” Japan confessed.  
  
Greece grunted, softly. “Me as well.” The wan smile was back. “I wonder how much longer these things will have to be endured.”   
  
“You won’t disappear because of this, either,” Japan insisted again, and felt himself shift, awkward.   
  
This time, Greece looked surprised only for a moment, before he smiled again and nodded. “Thank you.”   
  
Japan, for the first time in months, years, centuries, it felt like, smiled. It was slight, and wouldn’t have been a smile on anyone else. He looked down at his knees, felt his cheeks turn pink and hated himself for it, but couldn’t fight back the small quirk of lips upwards. If Greece saw it, he made no comment on it and for that, Japan was incredibly grateful. They sat together in silence for a long moment, the only sound the rustle of the bells above their heads, and the distant sounds of birds in the trees of Japan’s garden.   
  
“It’s a hard world we live in,” Greece continued after a prolonged silence. Japan glanced at him, but Greece was looking away, towards the roof above their heads again. “For many people, it must be painful.”   
  
“Perhaps it’ll get better,” Japan said and wondered if he believed those words, when he thought of the pain and suffering that his people faced.   
  
“We can only hope.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Greece cringed, stiffening up and sucking in a sharp breath. Japan looked at him in alarm. The other man flashed him a slightly alarmed look but tried to stifle it and smooth it out before Japan could question it.   
  
Too late. “What is it?”   
  
Greece clenched his eyes shut and sucked in a shaky breath. “My people are fighting again.”   
  
And he cringed before Japan could answer him, and Japan watched in alarm as the poorly clotted wound on his cheek split open again and began to spill blood. His shoulders shook and the simple white shirt he wore over his bandages began to bleed through, a stain of red spreading across his chest. His breath was shaky, his face twisted in pain for a moment as he clenched the wood beneath his feet, lying back and curling into himself.  
  
“Ah—!” Japan began, eyes widening in shock as he moved towards him.  
  
Greece waved him away, sucked in a breath and held it a moment, face clenched and eyes closed tight. He stayed like that a long moment, Japan hovering beside him, before his body relaxed and he sat up. He rubbed at his forehead, and didn’t seem surprised when he pulled his hand back and saw it painted red.   
  
“Bandages, I—!” Japan stood up, but too quickly and he stumbled, hitting one of the support beams holding up the roof over the veranda. His body shook, pained and weak. He leaned against it, clenching the wood and resting his forehead against it a moment as he swallowed his shame at such a pathetic display.   
  
He heard shifting and a grunt and looked over his shoulder to see Greece pushing himself up, gripping his cross and shuffling over towards Japan.   
  
Japan couldn’t help but laugh uselessly. “I’m hopeless. I’m pathetic now.”   
  
“You aren’t,” Greece murmured, and this time did reach out a hand and touch Japan’s shoulder. He didn’t smile now, but he wasn’t frowning either. “Don’t push yourself needlessly. You’re in pain and your people…”   
  
Japan shook his head and tried to stand up again, but ended up leaning against Greece instead. His face colored in shame at having to do so, as Greece stumbled back a step and cringed slightly in pain.  
  
“I apologize,” Japan said, head lowered and not looking at Greece.   
  
Greece didn’t say anything, merely wrapped one arm around Japan and, together, the two lowered themselves back onto the veranda. Both breathing heavily, Japan leaned against the support column and Greece leaned against him, very lightly and mindful of his wounds. Whitened knuckles gripped Mt. Athos. Distantly, Japan noted that Greece’s arm was still around him, but as soon as he acknowledged its presence, if only briefly and wordlessly, it dropped away, hitting the wooden veranda behind him.   
  
“Your wounds…”  
  
“I have bandages on,” Greece reassured, surveying his stained shirt apathetically. “It’ll… it’s fine, for now. My people fight today, like yesterday and the day before. They will fight tomorrow.” He patted his face absently with one hand, and looked at the drying blood on his fingertips with a practiced nonchalance that caused Japan to stiffen in alarm. Greece nodded absently, and said, “It’ll be fine, for now.”  
  
Japan had to look away, clenching his eyes shut and trying to swallow the bile rising in this throat. He tried to steady his breathing, and realized belatedly that he was shaking. The strong and powerful empire… reduced to this. It was all that he could do not to duck off the side of his house and vomit out the empty contents of his stomach.   
  
_Clink. Clink. Clink._  
  
Japan had half a mind to stand up and rip the bells from his rafters. Instead, he tried to focus on the sound, on the peace they once gave him. The world was too wide now, too far away and powerful for him. It was strange, to have the world turn around upside down on him, to have everything he’d once believed to be true suddenly become false. He wondered if he was the first to feel this way, and instantly knew that it was a foolish thing to think that he was the only one who had ever suffered. He glanced at Greece, who looked at the sky before shifting his attention to Japan.   
  
“This world can be very painful,” Japan said softly.  
  
Greece regarded him quietly for a moment before shifting and nodding. “Yes.”   
  
Japan bit his lower lip. “But I suppose nothing can be done about it.”  
  
The other nation frowned. “If that’s what you believe, than that’s how it’ll be. Yes?”   
  
Deep down, Japan supposed he was right. But he was too tired to think of such things. Too weak. Too distracted. He sighed a long sigh, a sigh for someone far older than he was.   
  
“Ah,” was all he said.   
  
“Hm,” Greece agreed.   
  
“You can rest here, if you need to,” Japan offered after a long moment. He shifted, awkward. “I don’t have much here, and it’s probably not the safest or nicest place you could be but—America will probably come here in a while and you can talk to him then, as well.”   
  
Greece stared at him a moment, and then his face softened into an almost smile.   
  
“It’s just…” Japan hesitated and felt even more foolish than before. He looked away, to try to smooth his face into one that resembled some form of integrity and nonchalance. “You seem tired.”  
  
“I am,” Greece admitted, eyes closing for a moment before reopening so that he could better regard his bleeding knuckles.   
  
Japan wasn’t sure what else to say, and it didn’t seem that Greece was prepared to say more. He sat beside him a moment before he thought that perhaps he should retract the invitation. He opened his mouth to speak, to apologize for such foolishness, when Greece spoke first:   
  
“Alright.”   
  
“… Ah,” Japan said and looked away, wondering since when he’d become so shy. He’d once been a strong, unstoppable nation. He wasn’t sure if he was mourning the loss of that position or was just thankful for a moment of peace.   
  
Greece laid down on his side, facing towards his garden, pillowing his head against his arm. Japan pretended not to notice the small cringe of pain the shifting of positions issued from Greece. The taller man stared out over the garden, to the skies beyond, before letting his eyes fall shut. He was asleep almost instantly, dozing lightly, the small twist of pain in his features slowly uncoiling as he fell deeper and deeper into sleep.   
  
Japan watched him sleep, watched the steady rise and fall of his chest and felt his own chest constrict. He reached out one bandaged hand and passed it over Greece’s hair before he became aware of himself and retracted his hand quickly, cradling it in his lap with his other hand. He sucked in a shaky breath and closed his eyes.   
  
He felt the shifting shadows in his garden behind the closed lids, and the warmth of sun on his cheeks as it steadily crept towards the horizon, its inevitable sunset. He waited for the night to fall, and for the morning to follow.   
  
He collected the pieces left behind.   
  
_Clink. Clink. Clink._

**Author's Note:**

> \- The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki marked Japan’s surrender, and the reason why he is heavily wounded in this story.
> 
> \- "He missed the sunflowers the most": Hiroshima was often represented by sunflowers and it was the city flower. After the bombings, sunflowers have since been seen in Hiroshima and in Japan as a symbol of peace and the hope for a world free of nuclear weapons. Every year at the Hiroshima flower festival, sunflower seeds are spread throughout the city.
> 
> \- “Nothing can be done about it”: Translation of the phrase “shikata ga nai”, which was commonly used by both Americans and the Japanese people to sum up Japan’s feelings of resignation during the occupation. Post-war Japan was chaotic. Millions starved and were homeless, alcohol and drug use became major problems, lack of morale, despair, and prostitution ran rampant.
> 
> \- The occupation of Japan post World War 2 and Greek Civil War both had outside aid and influence from other countries, especially the United States.
> 
> \- “I was powerful”: For years during the war, propaganda in Japan led many Japanese citizens to believe that the country’s military might and strength would lead to an inevitable victory. Many people were shocked to learn about the surrender and how quickly it all came to an end, but this surprise was overshadowed by the hardships they were facing, such as starvation and homelessness.
> 
> \- “America has seen to it that I never have a military again”: During the occupation of Japan, the United States dismantled Japan’s military and guaranteed that they would never have a military force again. Of course, this was quickly remedied later on because America needed Japan’s help fighting communism in Asia.
> 
> \- “Many of them are leaving my shore, to seek a life elsewhere”: Because of the terrible conditions in Japan, many Japanese people fled the country to settle in the Japanese colonies.
> 
> \- “A weapon like that should not exist”: because of the bombings on Japan, Japan’s government has some of the most adamant and unrelenting anti-nuclear weapon legislation and standpoints in the world.


End file.
